


For Preston's Sake

by Aoife



Category: Honor Harrington Series - David Weber
Genre: Canon Relationships, Era: Reign of Elizabeth III of Manticore, Gen, Post-At All Costs, Preston of the Spaceways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-22
Updated: 2014-09-22
Packaged: 2018-02-18 10:07:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,997
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2344508
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Aoife/pseuds/Aoife
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For the newsie, it was the interview of a lifetime; for Emily it was an opportunity to lay ghosts to rest.</p>
            </blockquote>





	For Preston's Sake

**Author's Note:**

  * For [scribblemyname](https://archiveofourown.org/users/scribblemyname/gifts).



> This was originally _mostly_ written for the invisible ficathon, and then I got sick and defaulted. I finally brought the fic to a point that made sense to post, so ... better late than never?

"You'll have to excuse me if I fumble slightly, Lady White Haven, I.... I'm not used to interviewing people such as yourself. This is my first big assignment. To be honest, I'm not entirely certain why it was given to me in the first place."

 

 _Because everyone else is busy covering the real world, child,_ Emily thought. _Because this is nothing more than a little fluff piece to appease the masses. Regardless of how prominent my name, my husband's name, my WIFE's name, are, the anniversary of the airing of the first episode of "Preston Of the Spaceways" is not news, child, it's holofluff._

 

If she herself were being honest, Emily didn't know why she'd let Honor and Hamish talk her into this. While she did write scripts, attend social functions with high press-coverage, and have the ear of the queen whenever she chose to take advantage of it, Lady Emily Alexander-Harrington, Countess White Haven, had been quite adroit in avoiding directly engaging with the press, especially recently. It hadn't always been that way. There had been a time long ago - her career as an actress not yet even a fledgling - when she'd begged, prayed to be covered by the newsies. Back then, even the smutsies would have been welcome if it had gotten her the sugar plum role of her dreams. But now? She was doing it because she’d been asked, because the two people she trusted most had told her this was what they all needed. She was going to have to take it on faith for the moment. 

Looking up at the woman before her, Emily gave a small smile. “It’s probably because our Duchess - or the ‘cats - decided that they liked you. Honor was muttering about finding an honest newsie, as well.”

The young woman fumbled with the vocorder in her hands. "I - either way, I'm flattered, your grace."

“Don’t worry. I don’t bite anymore, and whether you believe it or not, both Honor and Hamish’s barks are worse than their respective bites.”

"I'll have to take your word on that, your grace, as I still haven't met either of your ..." the young woman let the sentence trail off, appearing to be at a loss as to what form of address to use in referring to Emily's family.

“Hamish is my husband, and Honor is our wife. My spouses. Which does I admit feel strange for me to say still. Honor finds it a little easier, as she’s grown rather used to Graysons.”

The young woman nodded, her head still down as she tinkered with various devices on the table between them. Emily couldn't help but be reminded yet again of how very YOUNG this one looked.

"Should we start there, your grace? I wasn't intending to pry, but I'm certain that our readers would be very eager to hear more about your recent marriage."

Emily smiled and tapped her working hand on a small tablet. “It was one of the topics I expected to cover with you, so don’t worry about prying.”

"It certainly came as an unexpected surprise to most people. How exactly do things work between the three of you? Do you resent them, your husband and wife, being able to do things you can't? How do YOU feel about Dame Harrington? Are the 'cats, her cat in particular, really as smart as everyone claims?" The woman's eyes went round as she realized precisely what she'd asked amid all the rush. "I -" she put her hands over her face.

“You’re all right. We’re not going out live, and I really did expect some _interesting_ questions, given that this is syndicated to Beowulf, Amelia. Alison Harrington was kind enough to sit down and come up with the worst questions she could think of to ask me before I even agreed to this, and you’re nowhere near her most intrusive ones yet.”

Emily carefully picked up a water glass and took a sip.

The young woman's eyes remained wide as she watched the gesture. " I thought you couldn't - "

“I have 75% functionality in the hand holding the water glass. But it took me years to reacquire. I can feed myself, rather than having to be fed; I can operate this chair manually, and I can edit my ‘scripts through a manual interface as well as verbally … As to what I feel about Duchess Harrington?” She smiled a little ruefully. “I love her and hate her, and would like to be her sometimes, Amelia - but she has her own injuries and demons and I regret nothing that has happened between the three of us.”

Amelia gave a small sympathetic smile. "Then this wasn't all their idea?"

Emily laughed. “No - it was twenty percent mutual attraction between the two of them; fifty percent bullheadedness and twenty percent me and Samantha, Hamish’s ‘cat, interfering for the sake of both of them.” She tapped a stylus on the arm of her chair. “and if I’m brutally honest the remaining ten percent was me imagining what the pair of them looked like in bed, appreciating the mental image and deciding to make it happen.”

Amelia gave a completely unladylike snort of surprise. "I'm glad to hear you say that, your grace. Much as I admire both your spouses, I have to admit I would have respected them less if your answer had been otherwise ... And speaking of the 'cats, what's it like living in a household with two of them? Are they really as smart as people say?" Amelia leaned forward, forgetting herself in her eagerness to know more about the elusive creatures

“Smarter. Smarter definitely and emotionally intelligent as well. They have something akin to a racial memory and they’ve had 400 years to learn how to interpret human emotions. But it isn’t as odd for me as it could be – I had regular interactions with Aerial and Munro when I was younger.”

"I suppose early exposure would make it easier to accept. Your life, your grace, it's been...." the young woman paused, searching for the right word. "Amazing? A Fantasy? Every woman's dream?”

 

Her dreams. 

 

She'd had - _lived -_ so many of them back then. While she might not have been getting the serious roles she'd desired just yet, looking back she knew that the life she'd been leading had been every young woman's dream. Hamish. Bold, handsome, high flying, politically well connected, he'd been everything she could have dreamed of in a suitor. It had all been so incredibly romantic, dreamlike. 

 

In hindsight, her whimsical decision to take that role in _“Preston of the Spaceways”_ had been nothing more than part and parcel with the rest of her life at the time. The series - soppy and over-the-top – had shown no more likelihood of succeeding than any other holodrama of the time. If anything, it’d been even less likely to survive the cutthroat ratings game simply by virtue of being as improbable a fantasy as it was. But Hamish had liked the script, thought it _fun_. And Emily had taken the role. _And look where we’ve both wound up because of it,_ she thought with no little bit of irony. _I was such a ninny back then. I would never have imagined –_

 

Never have imagined what? That she’d be an invalid trapped in a body no longer capable of supporting her without the assistance of machines? That she’d be avoiding the press rather than courting them? That she’d be considered one of the iconic holodrama figures of her era? Married both to Hamish _and_ another woman? 

 

 _Yes_ , she reflected with flat honesty. _I would never have imagined any of it. But then again, from where I am now, I wouldn’t trade all of this for one drop of the dreams I used to have. I might never have imagined being here but at the same time there’s no place else I’d rather be._

 

 _Even if you are about to giving a newsie your first interview in more than three decades?_ The voice questioned insistently. Emily refocused her attention on Amelia, ignored the voice of her own self-doubt. 

“I'm sure you never thought, back when you were my age, that this would be the way things would turn out. You must have been what? Just about to audition for your role in Preston of the Spaceways when you were my age, right? What was that like?"

“It started off as a entertaining romp, and it did its job – it distracted me from the run up to Hamish’s deployment to Silesia, and then it –“ she smiled a small secret smile “- it all got tangled up in what was happening in real life. I’m told that I allowed fiction and real life to bleed together for a while, and it entranced the audiences.”

"Oh yes," Amelia murmured, and Emily could tell from her expression that the young woman was one of the series' fans. "Did you know when you took the role that it would become something big? Were you expecting it?"

Emily laughed. “No - it was something between bribery and blackmail that got me to take part. It was a tiny SCA-sponsored holodrama when we started filming it, and then it -“ she made a throwing gesture “-went interstellar on us. And they let me write new episodes, because we didn’t have any ‘scripts to hand. And _that_ is where it all got tangled.”

"Rumor has it you did quite a lot of research when writing your scripts, that there was a REAL Preston, even if that's not what his true name was."

Emily blushed. “I had the original legends about Preston to work with, but Elizabeth let me have access to Hamish’s dispatches, and I had the letters we exchanged. And, well I needed inspiration for bringing the adventures a little more up-to-date from somewhere.”

"So if there WAS a real Preston - whatever his name really is - was your own character based on real life as well?"

Emily covered her eyes with her functioning hand. “That’s where it gets fuzzy. My character is in the original legends, but not quite in the manner I played her.” She paused; “The fairytale romance certainly isn’t. She was supposedly married to Preston, but we know very little about her.”

Amelia sighed, "Off the record, you'll pardon me if I hope that her life really was every bit as much of an adventure as what you wrote. On the record, was the real Preston every bit of the hardass navy officer you made him out to be in your scripts?"

“Oh yes. In a simply marvellous way.”

Amelia grinned widely. It was a grin which Emily thought she could probably grow to enjoy seeing. "And your own character, what was her name ... Rya? Rana? What was it...." She waved it off dismissively. "Was the part of her that you played as being impudent and challenging and bratty something of the true person, or was that a part of you?"

 _She was a part alright,_ muttered the challenging voice inside her head, the one that had been growing stronger and stronger as she, Hamish, and Honor had become –

 

 _Become what?_ The voice asked insistently.

 

 _Something beautiful,_ she told the voice firmly.

 

They were something beautiful. The three of them. Together. Honor, Hamish, together the two of them were amazing, a force to be reckoned with. But it was she, Emily Alexander-Harrington, with her keen sense of how to best turn a situation to their advantage, that made them into a force of nature.

 

The insight was a revelation. This was it; the reason Hamish and Honor had insisted she accept the request for this idiotic interview. This was her part to play in the grand performance that was their lives.

 

 _And what a performance,_ she thought, as she sat up slightly straighter in her chair. _You’ve no idea, child. No clue what’s in store for you. This is the interview of a lifetime. And you’ve no idea yet what’s in store for you._

 

 

 


End file.
